Search

Subscribe to AFM

The American's Creed

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign nation of many sovereign states; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it; to support its constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag; and to defend it against all enemies.

7 Responses to “Ten for Tuesday, January 31, 2012”

Those expiring tax breaks are for 2012, which would be realized on your April 2013 filing. Pretty bad to speculate on that sort of thing because Congress has been famous for extending those breaks — it allows them all to campaign and say: “Look, I lowered your taxes.”.

I don’t think there has ever been a year where Congress didn’t pass the AMT “patch”.

hal) I’m reading the “2011 Instructions for Schedule A (Form 1040)” and it says:

Line 5: You can elect to deduct state and local general sales taxes instead of state and local income taxes. YOU CANNOT DEDUCT BOTH.

What am I missing? I don’t remember the mess from previous years, but for 2011 income tax returns — you can in fact deduct state sales taxes in Texas (as long as you meet all the other restrictions for filing Sched-A).

hal) oh, nevermind — I see now that you are talking about for 2012 (filing in 2013). Yeah, it looks like only the state ‘sales-tax’ part is expiring (not state ‘income-tax’) — what a crock — they two should be interchangeable. But, hey, who said our tax code was fair?